I manage the Help Desk for an organization that is both an NGO and a private college, headquartered in the U.S. We have about 650 users based in Vermont, Washington DC, and around the Globe, and an IT Infrastructure staff of 6 to support all these people.

I came across the concept of ITIL while researching Help Desk Call Center software. I need to upgrade my current ticketing system.

So when does ITIL matter, and when doesn't it? Why should I care about a ticketing system that is ITIL compliant versus one that isn't? If there's a FAQ about this, please point me there; I checked the FAQ for this Forum but it's all just about "my account isn't working" and such.

First of all, there is no such thing as an 'ITIL compliant' tool. People who tell you otherwise are not telling you the truth. A tool might facilitate certain (ITIL)processes, that doesn't mean that this tool fullfills your (business)requierements.

Also, ITIL (proces) and call center software (tooling) are two different things. You should have your processes clear, after which you ought to addapt your tooling to facilitate those processes.

Re. your question about when ITIL does matter: it always does, as long as it provides added value to your NGO. As silly and logically as that may sound, many people tend to forget this and see ITIL as a goal instead of (part of) a solution.

ITIL is a 'good practice', a descriptive framework that is about a service lifecycle (v3), backed up by processes such as incident management, change management etc. Hey John, so if your team works on incidents, changes etc. that means that you are already 'doing ITIL' (or at least bits of it). You might not call it ITIL, you might not follow the ITIL books for 100% (who cares), but you are executing processes described in the IT Infrastructure Library.

Using ITIL explicitly (and in the right way) should help you to (1) provide a common language for all people involved in IT, and (2) to POSSIBLY become more efficient / mature in your processes (the latter obviously depending on your organisation). It should always be used in the context of people, performance, proces, product (tool), partner (supplier).

I appreciate the way Michiel Croon has explained. I fully agree with his post.

ITIL is a framework of best of the practices that are followed by IT Service Managers around the globe. You can pick up practices that suite (or needed) to your organization, existing & future business requirements and type service(s) that are being provided.